The Bangladesh's Climate Change and Gender Action Plan is on going

15 February 2013 | Article

Thanks to the support from the Government of Finland, the GGCA Program of Work has proven highly successful in bringing gender into climate negotiations and moving to action both at the global and local levels over the last five years.

Following work conducted by IUCN on behalf of the Alliance at the national level in various countries around the world, and hot on the heels of a new publication released in Doha towards the end of last year that captures the experience, IUCN will once again develop a Climate Change and Gender Action Plan (ccGAP) on request of the Government of Bangladesh during February 2013.
At least two workshops were scheduled to take place in Dhaka: training for women and women’s organizations (broadly based in the GGCA Training Manual on Gender and Climate Change), as well as a multi-stakeholder workshop where the Action Plan will be developed.
The ccGAP will build on the revised edition of the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), released in 2009. The BCCSAP identifies 6 pillars for intervention, including: Food Security, Social Protection and Health; Comprehensive Disaster Management; Infrastructure; Mitigation and Low Carbon Development; and Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening.
IUCN has engaged several GGCA partners and stakeholders both at the international- and the national level in this process. Following the workshops, a zero draft of the document will be handed to the Government of Bangladesh for further action, including incorporating it into its larger policy framework.
Bangladesh is widely regarded as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. In its Second Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) submitted to the Secretariat in December 2012, the government expresses clearly that “Bangladesh needs to strengthen the coordination, networks and information flows between ministries, different levels of government and civil society to have a more efficient integration of climate change variables into poverty reduction and development strategies.” The development of ccGAPs in other countries has proven the potential of gender becoming a common area of interest that facilitates exactly such coordination and integration amongst various stakeholders very effectively.